


Oathbreaker

by Westpass



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Not Beta Read, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Not Natasha Friendly, Not Steve Friendly, Sam is Not Amused, idek, what if Sam hadn't known about the data dump until afterward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-28 00:01:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15696069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Westpass/pseuds/Westpass
Summary: A different ending for Sam Wilson post CA: WS





	Oathbreaker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chris7100](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chris7100/gifts).



Sam tugged off his jacket and hung it up on the coatrack in his kitchen. Sweet heaven, he was tired.  
The last two days seemed like they should've been a month with everything that had happened.  


Well. They'd won; the Helicarriers had been destroyed, he and Nat and Steve were alive and more-or-less in one piece.  
He'd left once Steve had recovered enough to wake up. Steve had had a fractured skull when they found him  
on the riverbank, along with the GSW to his stomach. Yay for serum-enhanced healing?  


Nat and Sam had taken turns on guard duty, making sure not only that HYDRA didn't get another chance at Captain America, but that  
no overly curious or greedy doctors got the bright idea of helping themselves to a blood sample from an unconscious super-soldier.  


He glanced at the vibranium shield sitting on his coffee table. "I'ma paint you pink," he threatened. "With polka dots. Just to see the look on his face...'kay, I'm goin' to bed while I still have live brain cells left to save."  


He suited words to actions. The rest of the clothes were stuffed into a hamper. He still ached all over, but a jaw-cracking yawn stopped any  
consideration of taking a quick shower before he slept. He crawled into bed and shut his eyes.

The sound of a door being slammed jolted him out of sleep. He sat upright, groping for the holdout knife he kept under his pillow. Steve wasn't the only one who had some memories that still hurt and haunted.  


The room was cold. So cold.  
A shadowy figure stood by the door to his bedroom. He hit the light switch. Nothing happened.  
"Who's there?" he called sharply. 

"Sergeant Samuel Wilson." It was a woman's voice, high and sweet. 

"...yeah, that'd be me. "

Then the lights came on, and he bit back a scream.

"What. The. Fuck--"

Half of her face was that of a young, rather attractive woman, the other half...rotted, a corpse's skull, bones gleaming ivory. Long black hair that fell almost to her ankles dripped water onto the floor. The cloak she wore was ragged and stained with new and old blood. 

_"You betrayed us,"_ she hissed, and the voice became a choir of them, men and women and children all speaking together. _"We died because of you. We are still dying, traitor. Oathbreaker."_

He gaped at her, unable to find words. 

_"I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same."_

"What the hell is that supposed to mean--"

The TV flickered on. Sam watched, as a news report came on.

"...a fire in Seattle claimed the lives of almost a dozen people tonight, in what police are describing as a terrorist attack. The organization known as HYDRA is suspected of involvement in the--"

Wait, WHAT????

The woman--monster? laughed once, bitterly. " _Your chosen allies have lied to you as well. Do you think it was only HYDRA's secrets they cast to the winds? And you helped them to do it. To end hundreds of lives that were innocent. Your theft from your superiors, that you swore to respect and obey. Already scores have crossed into my realm. More wait at its border. Their blood cries out for justice._ " 

She laughed again, harshly dissonant, the sound of glass or bone breaking, and disappeared. 

Then nothing. Silence. 

Sam was up, grabbing his phone off the nightstand. 

" Romanoff here..."

"Natasha, what the hell did you do?! HYDRA-- _tell_ me you didn't burn all of SHIELD's people along with them--"

She sounded baffled. "We had no way to expose them without dumping everything, Sam--there was no time. We thought you understood that was what Steve meant, when he said 'it all goes'. "

Sam's grip tightened on the phone until the plastic cracked. He threw it away, his heart racing. 

_What did we do?_  
* * *  


The next several days passed in a nightmare blur.  
Natasha and Steve tried to call him several times. He didn't pick up, nor call them back.  


He'd phoned Tony Stark that same night. Stark, plus Hill, another ex-SHIELD agent named Barton, and a _lot_ of other people were coordinating rescue efforts for the burned SHIELD agents and their families.  


Sam had gone to the Tower, taking the stolen Falcon suit with him.  
SI's people were able to get it functioning again quickly. Stark had some choice words to say on the subject of their not calling a genius engineer/programmer to help with the Helicarriers or protecting SHIELD's data from the fallout.  


Sam didn't argue or try to defend himself. 

He traveled across the country, looking for the people whose names had been in those files. HYDRA was viciously predictable, and moved fast. He found survivors...but more often, he found houses burned to the ground, or bodies left as a message.  


_Cut off one head, two more grow in its place._  


Finally, he received a call from the U.S. Army. Sam hadn't been trying to hide his whereabouts or his activities. That struck him as beyond pointless now. He was wearily surprised to note that it had been almost a month. He wouldn't have thought it'd take them that long.  
He agreed to surrender himself and the Falcon wings.  


MPs met him at the front lobby of Stark--no, Avengers--Tower. Tony had offered to pay for a top-notch lawyer for him, or even help him disappear under a new identity if that was what Sam wanted.  


" _Sure, you fucked up. And then you admitted it and worked to put things right. Unlike Rogers or Romanoff, who are too busy telling the country they're indispensable."_ The inventor had snorted in disgust.  


" _It's not enough,_ " Sam whispered.  


"... _never is,"_ Tony said quietly. " _I guess I understand that too. Do what you think you gotta. There'll be a place for you to come here afterward, if you need to._ "  


_"Goodbye, T-Bone. Stay safe out there, 'k?_ "  


_" Stay strong, Wings._ "  


He handed over the armor, and his weapons, tried not to feel a pang at the idea of never flying again.  


Shame kept him silent as they arrested him and led him to his court-martial.  


He was given a dishonorable discharge, but no prison time.  


It didn't really matter.  


He'd feel that cold in his soul for the rest of his life, he knew, even once the manacles came off.


End file.
